PART FIVE

THREE CHAPTERS IN CONCLUSION

XX A Rearpost of War 245

XXI Myths 256

XXII When Chenal Sings the "Marseillaise" 264

AN INTRODUCTION

By Myron T. Herrick,

Former United States Ambassador to France.

The rigid censorship placed on journalism upon the declaration of war in Europe brought the representatives of the American press into close relationship with the Embassy. The news which they brought to the Embassy and such news as they received there, required unusual discretion, frankness and confidence on the part of all concerned in order that the American public should receive accurate information, while avoiding the commission of any improprieties against the countries involved in the great conflict.

In this supreme test the American newspaper representatives appreciated that they were something more than mere purveyors of news; they arose to the full comprehension of their responsibility, and were of invaluable assistance to the Embassy, and through it to the nation.

While there has been no opportunity to read the advance sheets of this book, my confidence in the character and ability of the author, begotten in those days when real merit, and demerit as well, were revealed, makes it a pleasure to write this foreword, and to commend this volume unseen.

(Signed)

[Illustration]

Cleveland, Ohio, October 19th, 1915.

A FOREWORD

At the outbreak of the European war, the author, who was then stationed in Paris as the correspondent of the _New York Times_, was refused, with all other correspondents, any credentials permitting him to enter the fighting area. He entered it later, immediately after the battle of the Marne, with what were in Paris considered sufficient credentials. But he was arrested, returned to Paris as a prisoner of war and lodged in the Cherche Midi prison, the famous military prison, where Dreyfus was confined. He was released upon the intervention of Ambassador Herrick, but still baffled in getting to the front as a war correspondent, he volunteered for service in the Red Cross as an orderly on a motor ambulance. A few of the descriptions in the following pages are written from notes made during the two months he remained in that service.

At the beginning of 1915, the author was officially accredited as a correspondent attached to the French army, and at the beginning of February sent to his paper the longest cable despatch permitted to pass the censor since the beginning of the war, and the first authentic detailed description of the French forces after the battle of the Marne.

The following spring, at the height of the first great French offensive north of Arras, the famous ground, every yard of which is stained with both French and German blood, the author was selected by the French Ministry of War as the only neutral correspondent permitted there. The first description given to America of the battle of the Labyrinth was the result.

Since then the author has made a number of trips to the front, always under the escort of an officer of the Great General Headquarters Staff, and has seen practically the entire line of the French trenches, up to the moment of the autumn offensive in Champagne. He was the first American correspondent to foreshadow this offensive in a long cable to his paper at the end of August, in which he asserted that the attack would commence "before the leaves are red," that being the only wording of the facts permitted by the censor, but which exactly timed the date of the action. A few of the following chapters have been rewritten from the author's article published in the _New York Times_, to which acknowledgment is made for permission to use such material. The author however wishes alone to stand sponsor for the sentiments and opinions expressed throughout the volume.